It will take an upset of stupendous proportions for Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod to lose on Thursday evening. The riding consists of the conservative south urban community and the right-wing rural area.

This is natural Tory turf.

MacLeod backs the Million Jobs Plan which won’t work because cutting spending and public-service employment does not stimulate the economy. She rightly has qualms about energy costs that could make Ontario industry more uncompetitive than it already is. MacLeod supports the dying horse-racing industry, throwing away good money on a bad project.

However MacLeod is a hard-working local representative and if Tim Hudak forms a government, she will play a senior role. If she can curb her outbursts in the legislature, MacLeod has the possibility of being a respected member of a potential Tory cabinet.

Uppal is right that the Mike Harris government left the electric system in a mess. Ontario no longer worries if it has enough power. Furthermore, the Liberals kept their promise to close dirty coal-generation plants.

Bulldog Pick: Lisa MacLeod

Ottawa South

Liberal MPP John Fraser says his party supports the second phase of the light-rail plan for Ottawa, without which the $2.1 billion light-rail first phase is pretty much useless because the first phase is way too short. That’s important backing for the project but it is oh-so-expensive.

Fraser is right about the McGuinty government shortening wait times at hospitals and making classroom sizes smaller.

Conservative Matt Young says the badly flawed Million Jobs Plan will back expansion of the light-rail plan. That said, Hudak has been all over the place on that support. That leaves a question mark on the future of light rail under Hudak.

Bulldog Pick: John Fraser

Ottawa Centre

This promises to be one of the most competitive races in the city.

Incumbent Yasir Naqvi has a law degree and is a member of the Liberal cabinet … both very big accomplishments for a fine young man. Naqvi has a big future in the Grit world, possibly becoming premier one day.

Naqvi has promised support for phase 2 of the light-rail plan, backs the footbridge over the Rideau Canal at Fifth Avenue and civic efforts to clean up the Ottawa River.

PC candidate Rob Decker has been active in the community and is co-chair of the Centretown Citizen Community Association’s planning committee. Decker has fought to improve the city’s aging infrastructure.

Decker rightly says the gas-plant fiasco has caused Ontarians to lose faith in the Liberals.

Meanwhile, the NDP’s Jennifer McKenzie has been chair of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board. She’s an engineer by trade.

She backs protecting the Ottawa River, transitfunding and money for cycling paths. McKenzie would dump the Ontario Municipal Board and let municipalities have their own appeals body.

McKenzie’s credentials are better than Decker’s but not as good as Naqvi’s. She would have been better advised to run for city council in leadership-challenged Kitchissippi ward.

Bulldog Pick: Yasir Naqvi

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1 Comment

I think Wynne is still suing both Hudak and MacLeod over claims that Wynne knew about the deletion of hard drives from the premier’s office, involving the OPP investigation into the gas plants scandal ($1.1 billion in cancellation costs). Wynne said she was sorry about that scandal during the debate, but has been silent on all the other Liberal mistakes or mismanagement like: Ornge, e-health, Pan-Am Games, eco tax, HST on essential services, Smart Metres, etc.– and the latest MaRS bailout is being praised by Wynne as a good investment! Furthermore, Warren Thomas, the top boss of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union, said yesterday that Wynne was lying about her claim to keep public sector jobs intact: “…. at least Hudak is honest and straightforward with what he’s proposing to do.” And Wynne is also prone to flip-flops like on the horse race industry, which she has now promised to fund — n.b. that premier Wynne is also the Minister of Agriculture. Anyway, kind of ironic that this election has become a horse race.

Worst of all has been the hydro scandal, especially the Green Energy Act. A class of high school students could have come up with a better energy policy. Why does this government always rush into or out of contracts, as well as their love for sole-sourcing? Why could we not have found a made in Ontario solution? Furthermore, the Green Energy Act prohibits rural councils from rejecting wind farm installations — even with the growing evidence of sickness that they cause (from the vibration, low-frequency noise and shadow flicker from wind turbines — up to 50-storeys high, many located just 550 metres from homes). And how many jobs have they created? (McGuinty initially claimed there would be over 60,000 green energy jobs created by his program.) And all these billions for less than 4 percent of our energy production. Indeed, it is expensive energy (with 20+ year contracts) that we cannot use and hence is being sold at a huge loss!!!! Lastly, the power grid is always being upgraded/maintained regardless of the government in power (we have spent $13 billion in the past eleven years). So why did we just hand over gratis 550 megawatts of access to this expensive grid to Samsung (as well as giving them a $110 million subsidy) as part of our deal with them? And the idea that we do not still encounter blackouts is wrong: more than 12,000 Hydro Ottawa customers in the city’s west-end were without power Wednesday morning (June 4, 2014) — it happens; no more or less than when the PCs were in power.

So, I would point to the hydro scandals and the sharp rise in electricity rates as the reason for a Liberal defeat because that hits everybody hard in the pocket book, and there is no cheap energy alternate. Again, instead of Chiarelli (Minister of Energy), Fraser (McGuinty’s right-hand man), and Naqvi (former President of the Liberal Party) singing the praises of the Green Energy Act, they should be championing measures to cut government spending in order to help correct their gross errors in managing this province’s energy portfolio. Sadly, many businesses have already voted with their feet against these rising energy rates — and there will be more to follow.